Plans for a new £267 million hospital in the North was given the go-ahead today were given the green light today.
Environment Minister Sammy Wilson granted planning permission for the 312-bed facility outside Enniskillen.
The four-storey acute hospital, which is set to open in 2012, will house outpatient and accident and emergency wards, operating theatres and research laboratories.
The original decision to site the new regional hospital in Enniskillen was not without its critics, however, with campaigners in Omagh deeply unhappy at losing acute services in the town.
However, people in Fermanagh had argued that Enniskillen was a more logical choice, given the distances patients in the far west of the region would have to travel if the hospital was built in Omagh.
PA